T. Mitchell Prudden
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NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOLUME XII-THIRD MEMIOR • BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THEOPHIL MITCHELL PRUDDEN i849-1924 BY LUDVIG HEKTOEN PRESENTED TO THE ACADEMY AT THE AUTUMN MEETING, 1925 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THEOPHIL MITCHELL PRUDDEN (1849-1924) BY I.UDVIG HKKTOKN In 1898 Prudden wrote: "Twenty-five years ago, pathological laboratories were rare in this country, and such as did exist were usually small corners in the dead-house of some hospital which had more enlightened governors or more money than the rest. In the medical colleges, then largely proprietary, pathology was merged in the chair of the practice of medicine. The student could, if he were enterprising, witness an occasional autopsy, but beyond this his knowledge of this fundamental theme was derived from lectures, charts and books."1 In the United States, teaching and research in pathology by men especially trained for the purpose and devoting themselves exclusively to this kind of work may be said to have begun in New York about 1878. In that year, T. Mitchell Prudden was appointed assistant in pathology and director of the laboratory of the alumni association of the College of Physicians and Sur- geons in New York. The following year, William H. Welch assumed the professorship of pathological anatomy and general pathology in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. This was the first full-time appointment of its kind in this country, and the fundamental importance of pathological anatomy in the medical curriculum was now established. Prudden and Welch are the American pioneers in renouncing medical practice and devoting themselves wholly to teaching and investigation in pathology. "Finally there appeared on the horizon in this country a few anomalous individuals who cherished the notion that the science of disease, even in its etiological and morpho- logical aspects alone, was broad and deep enough to command the exclusive attention of its devotees" (Prudden).2 1 Pathology and the department of pathology. Columbia University Bulletin, No. 19, 1898 (103-119). 2 Progress and drift in pathology. Med. Record, 57, 1900 (397-405). 73 NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. XII It was high time for this departure. After the study of the cell in disease was introduced by Virchow in 1856 (omnis cellula e cellula), pathology had developed rapidly. Due in large meas- ure to German influence and example, the need in the medical course of laboratory work in pathology had become acute. It was recognized too that besides clinical and anatomical observa- tion, experimental methods were necessary to progress in re- search on fundamental pathological problems. And the epochal discoveries of Pasteur and Koch just at this time were bringing in the microbic era with its wonderful progress in knowledge of infection and of prevention and treatment of infectious disease. It was a glorious period for medical science, and in advancing its revolutionary influences on medical education and medicine in this country the subject of this sketch3 played a leading part. Theophil Mitchell Prudden was born in the congregational parsonage at Middlebury, Connecticut, July 7, 1849. His mother was Eliza Anne Johnson, 1819-1889, daughter of Kben and Sally Mitchell Johnson at Southbury, Connecticut, and his father was George Peter Prudden, 1819-1872, a congregational clergyman, Yale graduate in arts and divinity, and the direct descendant in the seventh generation of the Reverend Peter Prudden, "among the worthiest of the honored founders of New England," one of the leaders of the New Haven colony in 1638, which he left in 1639 when he established the Milford church. A charming story, privately printed, of the life and work of Peter Prudden in Connecticut has been written by Lillian Eliza Prudden,4 Dr. Prudden's sister, to whom I am in- debted for much information and helpful comment. There were three more sons in the family—Edward Payson, who died in 1843; Henry Johnson, who died in 1890. and Theodore Phi- 3 The sketch follows closely the biographical notice of Dr. Prudden by Simon Flexner (Science, 1924, 60, 415-419; Annual Report of the Na- tional Academy of Sciences, Fiscal Year 1923-24, 1925, 101-109). Since the sketch was written there has been published privately Biographical Sketches and Letters of T. Mitchell Prudden. M. D., edited by Lillian E. Prudden, Yale University Press. New Haven. 1927. 4 Lillian E. Prudden : Peter Prudden, a story of his life at New Haven and Milford, Conn., with the genealogy of some of his descendants a.nd an appendix containing copies of old wills, records, letters and papers, New Haven, 1901. 74 THEJOPHII, MlTCHIvI.I/ PRUDD^X HEK.TOEN lander, M. A. and B. D., Yale; D. D., Illinois College; author of religious books, who died in 1916. T. Mitchell Prudden had a healthy and happy childhood in Connecticut parsonages with the best of traditions. The parents were guided by "a sympathetic realization of the youngster's point of view and of the necessity for amusement and initiation into knowledge and familiarity with things worth while." In- tellectual ideals were implanted early. In adolescence life be- came more strenuous. The father openly advocated antislavery principles at a time when it was unpopular and even dangerous to do so, and his house was a station on one of the branches of the "underground railway." Ill health soon compelled his re- tirement from active .service, .and the later years were spent in New Haven. The eldest son, Henry Johnson, who had literary tastes and eagerly wanted a college education, gave up this wish and entered' business in New Haven, where he later prospered. In 1866, T. Mitchell, then seventeen, went to work in his brother's establishment, which he swept and dusted and where he could watch the ways of -business, but the duties proved irk- some and he gave up the work after about one year. A little later he had a cruising adventure in Long Island Sound in a fishing schooner that ended in mutiny of the crew, landing of the passengers on the rocks of Stratford Light, and his return to New Haven on foot. In the meantime with the aid of his brother, he had made a start toward college and science. In addition to the schooling he had received in 'various places, he prepared for Yale at Wilbraham Academy in Massachusetts and entered the Sheffield Scientific School in 1869 under a State fellowship with free tuition. At the end of the first year, medi- cine was settled on as the goal. Here was the chosen field in which he might hope to be able to satisfy his high ideals of life and service. As yet no provision had been made in the Sheffield Scientific School for instruction in zoology, botany, organic and physiological chemistry. Realizing the importance of these sub- jects for medicine, Prudden and his friend and classmate, Thomas Russell, later professor of surgery in Yale Medical School, appealed to the faculty, and "the biological course in preparation for medicine" was established. There is good reason to believe that this appeal for a biological course was inspired 75 NATIONAL ACADKMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. XII by the enthusiasm and insistence of Prudden. The Yale Col- lege catalogue for 1870-71 contains this statement about the course preparatory to medicine: "During one year the work of this course will be chiefly under the direction of the instructors in chemistry; during the second year, under that of the instruc- tors in zoology and botany. In chemistry, especial attention will be given to the examination of urine and the testing of drugs and poisons; in zoology to comparative anatomy, reproduction, embryology, the laws of hereditary descent and human para- sites ; and in botany to a general knowledge of structural and physiological botany, and to medicinal, food-producing, and poisonous plants. The studies of the select course in physical geography, history, English literature, etc., are followed by these students." Prudden and Russell were the first two students in the biological course. They "were invited for special advanced work in botany into Eaton's Herbarium at his house; they were placed in Johnson's private laboratory for physiological chem- istry ; they worked rather as assistants than as students under the eye ... of Verrill and Sid. Smith in the old bug lab. (alias zoology laboratory)." It may be recalled here that a laboratory for physiological chemistry was organized as an in- tegral part of the biological course by R. H. Chittenden in 1874. Beside his association with Thomas Russell, Prudden became allied intimately in scientific interests with James Thacher (1847-1891), tutor in physics and later in zoology at Yale, investigator of vertebrate involution, and from 1879 professor in the medical school, to the development of which he devoted himsel f with marked success. The last two years in Sheffield were full of action—collecting of animals and plants on land and water about New Haven, courses with Whitney, Louns- bury (honorable mention in English composition), and Gilman, membership in Berzelius ("invited earlv to join Berzelius, its associations were throughout among the most salutary of the college influences"), scientific editorship of Yale Lit. He re- ceived a prize in mineralogy. In the spring vacation of 1872 Prudden and Russell chartered a yacht and with a few choice spirits made a dredging expedition down the Sound. They brought back much valuable material and established new habi- 76 TH^OPHJI, MITCHI^ PRUDDIJN HEKTOEN tats for several marine vertebrates. Theirs was the first dredg- ing about Woods Hole. In 1872, Prudden graduated as A.B. and entered the Yale Medical School without delay. As illustrating the confidence his teachers felt in him, it may be mentioned.